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For almost a decade I’ve been involved with the Football Scholars Forum, an online book club that TV wordsmith Ray Hudson labeled “the soccer think tank.” I also like to think of it as an intellectual pick up game. An informal space to read, reflect, try new things, network, learn, and engage in thoughtful conversations with fútbologists around the …

The white, middle class, minivan-driving suburban “Soccer Mom” has been part of U.S. political discourse since at least the 1996 presidential election. Two decades later, soccer is so embedded in mainstream American culture that a candidate is using past college playing experience to boost her campaign. Democrat Amy McGrath is challenging GOP incumbent Andy Barr …

Prior to this year’s FIFA World Cup, which France won last night in Moscow by defeating Croatia 4-2 in the final, I had never experienced a World Cup without my Italy. To make matters worse, my secondary teams, USA and South Africa, also did not qualify. What would it be like to follow the most …

[Note: This review essay is cross-posted from idrottsforum.org.] In an extraordinary stroke of good luck, I recently had the opportunity to read Football and Colonialism by Nuno Domingos and Following The Ball by Todd Cleveland. These well-researched scholarly histories of Africans in Portugal’s soccer empire beautifully complement each other. Football and Colonialism reconstructs the culture of the game in Lourenço Marques …

This post includes a few things about getting started bike commuting. The thesis is something like: **If you have a safe route, you can probably commute right away, and then add-on other things (like a rack, fenders, or different tires) over time. The most important thing – a safe route! The most important thing is …

When I was in Japan in the mid-1990s almost no one outside of a small group of MMA fans had ever heard of BJJ or Gracie Jiujitsu. Sometimes when I went to a judo club to practice I would just explain that I was a “newaza specialist” (ground technique specialist) or even that I wanted to do …

Nelson Mandela would have been proud of Colin Kaepernick and the black (as well as a few white) U.S. athletes involved in the national anthem demonstrations against police violence and systemic racism. “Sport has the power to change the world,” Mandela believed. “It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that …

The University of Zambia will host the 12th Sports Africa conference on March 26-28, 2018. The theme of the conference is: “Pan-African Sports Studies: Beyond Physical Education.” The conference in Lusaka will bring together sports scholars and practitioners from African, North American, and European Universities working on a diversity of topics in a wide range …

The English Premier League is an obsession for millions of African fans. Author and fútbologist David Goldblatt recently traveled to Lagos, Nigeria, to find out what this cultural phenomenon looks like and why there is such deep reverence for Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea, Spurs, and . . . Bournemouth. In a newly released piece for …

Is there an implicit racial bias in Major League Soccer and other U.S. leagues? A piercing SB Nation story this week grappled with the implications of a recent study‘s disturbing findings “that black players are 14 percent more likely to be called for cautions than their non-black counterparts.” The study by Paste magazine also found that …

“Beyond the Pitch” is a riveting BBC World Service radio documentary that explores the close links between the “beautiful game” of football and the “dirty game” of politics in multiple African countries. Produced by Farayi Mungazi and Penny Dale, the 50-minute feature aired on the eve of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) …

2016 (on two wheels) was a good year with some challenging points too. Here were some rides silly, challenging, and otherwise memorable: This was one of the most strange rides ever. Katie and I decided to head to St. John’s. It doesn’t look too far (from where we are in Lansing), and it’s not, but …

The new documentary film Ciudad Deportiva tells the little-known story of the “Sport City” of Boca Juniors, Argentina’s most popular soccer team. The sport and leisure park was conceived by Alberto J. Armando, the president of Boca in the late 1950s and 1960s. At the time, it was one of the most ambitious architectural projects …

This video honors the Brazilian team Chapecoense and the victims of the tragic air crash that killed at least 71 people in Medellin, Colombia, on November 29, 2016. May they rest in peace. #ForçaChapecoense For further reading click here and here. Tweet

Laurent N’Dri Pokou died on November 13, 2016, after a long illness. He was 69 years old. Pokou in the 1970s symbolized the success of postcolonial African football and, like his fellow Ivorian, Didier Drogba, many years later, captured the imagination of an entire generation of Africans. Pokou was born on August 8, 1947, …

Photo: http://www.stellenboschfootball.co.za The story of Abongile Elton Qobisa, also known as the “Xhosa Maradona,” has not been covered by ESPN, SKY, SABC, or FIFA media. But Tarminder Kaur, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of the Free State in South Africa, is determined not to allow us to forget him. On October 26, the …

[View the story “Middle East Soccer Politics” on Storify] The Football Scholars Forum opened its 2016-17 season on September 19, with a discussion of James Dorsey’s long-awaited new book, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. A journalist and Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, …

Guðmundur Benediktsson who? On Wednesday, June 22, the 41-year-old Icelandic announcer’s emotional call of Iceland’s winning goal against Austria at Euro 2016 went viral. The moment was immediately enshrined into the unofficial Hall of Fame of soccer broadcasting. Benediktsson is no ordinary broadcaster. He played for Iceland from 1994 to 2001 and has coached steadily …

Fatma Samba Diop Samoura of Senegal, a career United Nations diplomat, was recently appointed by FIFA President Gianni Infantino as the world body’s new secretary general. “She will bring a fresh wind to FIFA—someone from outside,” Infantino declared. Listen to my radio interview with Assumpta Oturu as we discuss the significance of Samoura’s appointment and …

There is lots going on in the world of sports. There must be, as our local daily newspaper devotes more space to covering it than any other subject, seven days a week. Some of the most watched television are sports events. And it doesn’t take a genius to recognize that there is big money to …

I spent the last weekend catching up after a busy past month and biked with my wife Katie around town, and, in the process, thought about why I bike. Here are 10 reasons why: It’s a good form of exercise. Biking, even just a mile or two, is good for my physical fitness, especially for …

Africa is a Country‘s film division is working on an intriguing fútbol project that I just supported on Kickstarter. What’s it about? Africa’s Premier League is a film that follows four fans—in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and DR Congo—as they live through the highs and lows of a football season as a way to explore …

The BYU Education and Law Journal has published “Between a Tomahawk and a Hard Place: Indian mascots and the NCAA” by Stephanie Jade Bollinger. [pdf] An excerpt:: Thus, a reviewing court should find that agreements between Native American tribes and Universities granting approval for the use of Indian names as mascots should be void as against …

Image: Eliot Elisofon Photographic Archives, National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C. Cross-posted from The Allrounder [First published on November 13, 2014] We don’t just watch sports – we speak and hear sports. To find out how language shapes our lives as fans, we asked some of our writers to tell us about the …

Johan Cruyff, the Dutch football genius, has died of cancer at the age of 68. When I was 7 or 8 years old, growing up in Rome, my older brother Danny dragged me to a run-down movie theater to watch “Il Profeta del Gol”—a mesmerizing documentary film about Cruyff narrated by the legendary Sandro Ciotti, …

Premier League or Serie A? Talent or Intelligence? By Peter Alegi | March 8th, 2016 No Comments Video Player Patrice Evra knows football. Born in Dakar, Senegal, in 1981, Evra moved to France before he could kick a ball properly. He went on to captain both France and Manchester United. In 2014, Juventus paid a …

Two weeks before the FIFA election to select Sepp Blatter’s successor as president, the Football Scholars Forum, an international group based at Michigan State University, discussed The Ugly Game: The Corruption of FIFA and the Qatari Plot to Buy the World Cup by Heidi Blake and Jonathan Calvert. Qatar’s successful 2022 World Cup bid and …

The FIFA special presidential election will take place on February 26 in Zurich, Switzerland. On Thursday, February 11, at 2pm Eastern U.S. time. the Football Scholars Forum will intellectually and spiritually prepare for this momentous event with an online discussion of The Ugly Game: The Corruption of FIFA and the Qatari Plot to Buy the …

There are three aspects of American life and culture about which I am unapologetically–and nearly equally–passionate: education, politics, and sports. While I am sure that the 3 areas share many similarities, it’s the differences among these arenas that has attracted my enthusiasm. Education, specifically music education, has been my career path for over 30 years, …

Ghanaian football legend Charles Kumi Gyamfi, who passed away in September at the age of 85, was honored on Friday, December 18th, with an official state burial in Accra. Gyamfi began his top-level playing career at Cape Coast Ebusua Dwarfs in 1948-49. After one season, he joined Kumasi’s Asante Kotoko, staying until 1954 and then …

Nearly a decade ago, I devoured English reporter Andrew Jennings’s scathing investigation into “The Secret World of FIFA: Bribes, Vote Rigging and Ticket Scandals.” Now, in a compelling BBC Panorama documentary, Jennings updates the story by digging deeper into FIFA’s most recent and spiraling crisis. The documentary takes viewers to FIFA headquarters in Zurich, and …

On December 1, 2015, the Football Scholars Forum held its 33rd session. The Michigan State University-based online think tank pre-circulated a shared list of readings that formed the basis for a wide-ranging, highly engaging discussion about the impact and aftermath of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Thirteen fútbologists from the United States, Canada, Britain, …

The Football Scholars Forum, the online think tank based at Michigan State University, recently explored fascinating aspects of the long and complex relationship between fútbol and politics in the history of Buenos Aires, Argentina. In its second session of the 2015-16 season, FSF co-founder Alex Galarza, PhD candidate in History at Michigan State, shared a …

The Football Scholars Forum opened its 2015-16 season on Wednesday, October 14, with a discussion of Christoph Wagner’s DeMontfort University PhD thesis entitled “Crossing The Line: The English Press and Anglo-German Football, 1954-1996.” Based on extensive archival research, “Crossing the Line” analyzes representations of Germany and Germans in English newspapers’ football coverage of key international …

Liberi Nantes is the first competitive football club in Italy made up almost entirely of refugees and migrants. Playing in the Terza Categoria—the bottom rung of the Italian football pyramid—the team provides a peaceful space for West African men who survive treacherous journeys from West Africa to Libya and then by sea to the island …

I’ve been stalking my dog Loki with the camera to catch her doing Ahdomukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog Pose) and Urdhvamukha Svanasana (Upward-Facing Dog Pose) because she does them so well. Sadly, I’m not quick enough with the shutter. Of course, her poses don’t look exactly like the bi-pedal versions (or maybe that’s the other way …

Thieves, rapists and murderers in Uganda’s only maximum security prison play for Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Barcelona, Juventus, and . . . Hanover 96. In a gripping podcast recorded in Luzira, a suburb of Kampala, David Goldblatt tells the story of the Upper Prison Soccer Association (UPSA), “the most elaborate prison football league in the …

I love yoga. I feel calmer, taller, more limber, and happy after a good yoga session. I particularly love Iyengar yoga which I have studied off and on with Lynlee Sky at the Yoga Practice Center for almost ten years. Lately that has been more off than on. Despite how good it makes me feel. …

A good friend and former colleague, Dr. Frank Fear, recently blogged at The Sports Column about the funding of higher education sports programs, where the subsidies are, to put it kindly, crazy. Subsidies are the Name of the Game in D-1 College Sports by Frank Fear June 7, 2015 His analysis shows how important big …

On Tuesday, June 2, Sepp Blatter announced his intention to resign as FIFA president just four days after winning reelection to a fifth term — an electoral victory that simply could not have happened without the support of FIFA’s African members. According to unofficial calculations, the 133 votes secretly cast for Blatter came from Africa …

Thirty years ago, on May 29, 1985, I gathered with a dozen teammates in a living room in Rome to watch the European Cup final between my Juventus and Liverpool. Barely fifteen years old, black-and-white scarf around my neck, there was nothing more I wanted than to avenge our shocking loss to Hamburg in the …

[iOS users click here to listen.] Juventus, the Old Lady of Italian football, is in the Champions League final for the first time since 2003. In an interview I did a year ago with Austin Long for the Soccer Nomad podcast, I explain how I came to support the bianconeri in the mid-1970s despite being …

Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan conscience of a continent and author of my favorite fútbol book of all time died on Monday, April 13, at the age of 74. “I’m wandering downtown in the rain searching for words to describe what I’m feeling right now. Something, anything to make sense of the loss,” is …

Zambia won the African Nations Cup in 2012. It is a recognized regional football powerhouse. As in most African countries, Zambians are fiercely passionate and knowledgeable about the game. Yet to this day no academic history of soccer in Zambia exists. Hikabwa Decius Chipande, a native of Zambia currently completing his PhD in history …

Foreign white coaches’ involvement in African football dates back to the earliest days of colonialism. Beginning in the 1960s, independent African states continued to hire many Europeans (especially from the Eastern bloc and West Germany) and South Americans to manage national teams and player development programs. This funny BBC video raises serious questions about this …

This documentary is about the jiujitsu lifestyle in So Cal. It starts old school, back in the day, when the Gracies were new to the US and teaching out of a garage. I also recommend the video below (great little fight at the beginning, ending in a heel hook; you can feel the adrenaline). I …

How does football shape national narratives in Latin America? Why is the game so closely tied to masculinity and femininity? How can studying fútbol advance our understanding of Latin American history? These and other questions were part of the Football Scholars Forum recent discussion of Joshua Nadel’s Fútbol!: Why Soccer Matters in Latin America. The …